The Boy Without a Name

He doesn't know who he is.

Those words echoed through my mind like thunder on a quiet field.

I stared at Riven. "What do you mean he doesn't know? He forgot?"

He shook his head. "Not forgot. Was made to forget. The servant who raised him kept his past buried. Gave him a new name. A new life. She thought it was the only way to keep him alive."

I swallowed. "Then… how do we even know it's him?"

Riven reached into his cloak and pulled out a pendant.

Silver. Worn and scratched. But the symbol etched into it—the sun wrapped in thorns—was the Thalor crest.

"He had this," Riven said. "Never took it off."

I took it gently, tracing my thumb across the emblem. Something stirred in me. A pull. Like my soul recognized it before my mind did.

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"A village near the border. Hidden in the forest, under the name Kalen."

Kalen.

That name didn't belong to my blood. But maybe he did.

We rode for two more days, the landscape growing harsher. Trees grew taller, thicker. The path narrowed, twisted. The villages we passed grew poorer, quieter. Whispers followed us—about soldiers, about rebels, about masked strangers in the woods.

And finally, as the sun dipped low behind the mountains, we reached it.

The village of Tareth Hollow.

Smoke curled from chimneys. Children ran barefoot through the dust. And at the edge of the clearing stood a boy—no, a young man—splitting wood with his sleeves rolled up and sweat on his brow.

I felt my breath catch.

He had our mother's hair. Dark as night. And my father's eyes—gray and stormy, too old for someone so young.

Riven nudged me gently. "That's him."

I dismounted, heart pounding like war drums.

He didn't look up as I approached.

But when he did—his gaze locked with mine.

And something in him froze.

He didn't know who I was. But something in him remembered me.